The Purcell Papers, vol 1 | Page 5

And die in agony.
P.S.--You'll allow I have the gift
To write like the immortal Swift.'
But besides the poetical powers with which he
was endowed, in
common with the great Brinsley,
Lady Dufferin, and the Hon. Mrs.
Norton,
young Sheridan Le Fanu also possessed an
irresistible
humour and oratorical gift that,
as a student of Old Trinity, made him
a
formidable rival of the best of the young debaters
of his time at
the 'College Historical,' not a
few of whom have since reached the
highest
eminence at the Irish Bar, after having long
enlivened and
charmed St. Stephen's by their
wit and oratory.
Amongst his compeers he was remarkable for
his sudden fiery
eloquence of attack, and ready
and rapid powers of repartee when on
his
defence. But Le Fanu, whose understanding was
elevated by a
deep love of the classics, in which
he took university honours, and
further heightened
by an admirable knowledge of our own
great
authors, was not to be tempted away by
oratory from literature, his
first and, as it
proved, his last love.
Very soon after leaving college, and just when
he was called to the

Bar, about the year 1838,
he bought the 'Warder,' a Dublin newspaper,

of which he was editor, and took what many
of his best friends and
admirers, looking to
his high prospects as a barrister, regarded at

the time as a fatal step in his career to
fame.
Just before this period, Le Fanu had taken
to writing humorous Irish
stories, afterwards
published in the 'Dublin University Magazine,'

such as the 'Quare Gander,' 'Jim Sulivan's
Adventure,' 'The Ghost and
the Bone-setter,' etc.
These stories his brother William Le Fanu
was in the habit of
repeating for his friends'
amusement, and about the year 1837, when
he
was about twenty-three years of age, Joseph
Le Fanu said to him
that he thought an
Irish story in verse would tell well, and
that if he
would choose him a subject suitable
for recitation, he would write
him one.
'Write me an Irish "Young Lochinvar," '
said his brother;
and in a few days he
handed him 'Phaudrig Croohore'--Anglice,

'Patrick Crohore.'
Of course this poem has the disadvantage not
only of being written
after 'Young Lochinvar,'
but also that of having been directly inspired
by
it; and yet, although wanting in the rare and
graceful finish of
the original, the Irish copy
has, we feel, so much fire and feeling that
it at
least tempts us to regret that Scott's poem was
not written in
that heart-stirring Northern
dialect without which the noblest of our
British
ballads would lose half their spirit. Indeed, we
may safely
say that some of Le Fanu's lines
are finer than any in 'Young
Lochinvar,'
simply because they seem to speak straight from
a
people's heart, not to be the mere echoes of
medieval romance.
'Phaudrig Croohore' did not appear in
print in the 'Dublin University
Magazine'
till 1844, twelve years after its composition,
when it was
included amongst the Purcell

Papers.

To return to the year 1837. Mr. William Le
Fanu, the suggester of
this ballad, who was from
home at the time, now received daily
instalments
of the second and more remarkable of his brother's
Irish
poems--'Shamus O'Brien' (James O'Brien)
--learning them by heart as
they reached him,
and, fortunately, never forgetting them, for his

brother Joseph kept no copy of the ballad, and he
had himself to write
it out from memory ten
years after, when the poem appeared in the

'University Magazine.'
Few will deny that this poem contains passages
most faithfully, if
fearfully, picturesque,
and that it is characterised throughout by a

profound pathos, and an abundant though at
times a too grotesquely
incongruous humour.
Can we wonder, then, at the immense
popularity
with which Samuel Lover recited it in the United
States?
For to Lover's admiration of the poem,
and his addition of it to his
entertainment,
'Shamus O'Brien' owes its introduction into
America,
where it is now so popular. Lover
added some lines of his own to the
poem, made
Shamus emigrate to the States, and set up
a
public-house. These added lines appeared
in most of the published
versions of the
poem. But they are indifferent as verse, and

certainly injure the dramatic effect of the
poem.
'Shamus O'Brien' is so generally attributed to
Lover (indeed we
remember seeing it advertised
for recitation on the occasion of a
benefit at a
leading London theatre as 'by Samuel Lover')
that it is a
satisfaction to be able to reproduce
the following letter upon the
subject from Lover
to William le Fanu:
'Astor House,
'New York, U.S. America.
'Sept. 30, 1846.
'My dear Le Fanu,
'In reading over your brother's poem
while I crossed the Atlantic, I
became more and
more impressed with its great beauty and dramatic


effect--so much so that I determined to
test its effect in public, and
have done so here,
on my first appearance, with the greatest success.

Now